Liverpool can forget about the title – they have bigger issues to solve | OneFootball

“We are in early November and you cannot win the title. You can lose it, but you cannot win it.”

Pep Guardiola may have spoken on Friday with the wisdom of a manager who has won 12 league titles, many of them as a frontrunner. Or perhaps it was a warning to a Manchester City side who were threatened with a nine-point deficit to Arsenal in the international break. If so, they responded. After their demolition of Liverpool, they are only four behind.

And it is Liverpool who, eight adrift, in eighth place, feel out of the reckoning. A week that brought a wonderful win over Real Madrid has lent itself to contrasting conclusions: that Liverpool are back, and then that they are back in the pack, distanced by Arsenal and City. Given a £450m spend, theirs is the most expensive title defence ever. It may have come to one of the earliest ends. “The last thing I should think about now is the title race,” said Arne Slot. “The reality is we are eighth now.”

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Liverpool are the first Premier League champions since Leicester to lose five of their first 11 games in the following season (AFP via Getty)

A five-point lead has disappeared, replaced by five defeats in six league games. “Too many,” said Slot. In every respect, too. The last champions to lose five of their first 11 games were Leicester in 2016-17, yet they were an extraordinary anomaly in winning the league. Chelsea lost six of their opening 11 matches in 2015-16, but that, in Antonio Conte’s immortal phrase, was the “Mourinho season”.

For Liverpool, this was supposed to be the Slot season; the year the manager who had won the league with Jurgen Klopp’s players repeated the feat with his own. Instead, there is a dramatic difference between Slot’s start and his present.

Liverpool only lost four league games last season, and two of them were after the title was clinched. They are outnumbered by five now. Include those May losses and it is seven defeats in their last 15 league games. They have a mere three clean sheets in that time, with 27 goals conceded. They have lost their last four on the road, and, going back to last season, six of eight.

As a whole, it points to a team who are too easy to beat, who have lost their solidity. They looked rediscovered against Aston Villa and Real. Maybe City was a defeat with a difference. If Liverpool had been too open in many a recent reverse, perhaps they were too cautious at the Etihad, bringing insufficient attacking threat.

Which, like much, is damning. City fielded converted midfielders at full-back, in Matheus Nunes and Nico O’Reilly. Their immediate opponents were the £100m man, Florian Wirtz, and Liverpool’s leading scorer of the last three decades, Mohamed Salah. Nunes and O’Reilly won their respective duels.

Wirtz was taken off to a rather predictable chant of “what a waste of money”. Slot opted not to bring on Alexander Isak, who has just returned to fitness, which may have spared the £125m man the same song. The German had played well against Real, presumably earning him selection ahead of Cody Gakpo, but it remains the case that Slot is reluctant to pick him as a No 10.

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Liverpool’s problems go back to the end of last season, and Arne Slot must address them before thinking about winning the title (PA Wire)

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Florian Wirtz (pictured) and Alexander Isak have struggled to settle at Liverpool since signing for a combined £225m (Reuters)

That title defence could, in effect, be over before Wirtz has contributed a Premier League goal or assist, or Isak a goal. The Swede has started three league games. Liverpool have lost all. It is true to say that neither was bought merely for the opening three months of their debut season, yet those three months are likely to mean that Joe Fagan’s class of 1984 will remain the last Liverpool team to retain the title. So far, Slot’s £225m outlay on the record-breaking duo has bought a negligible contribution to the Premier League. Remarkably, when Hugo Ekitike went off on Sunday, Liverpool, after committing £204m to strikers in the summer, had no striker on the pitch.

With Isak an unused substitute, Wirtz had a few minutes as a false nine. In the bigger picture, they are far from the only ones at fault. Ibrahima Konate’s decidedly mixed performances means Liverpool have an erratic figure in a position where they need certainty. Dominik Szoboszlai remains the outstanding candidate to be named their player of the season; thus far, however, the shortlist is precisely that.

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Liverpool’s terrible start means they are eight points adrift in their title race defence (Liverpool FC via Getty)

It is a reason why Slot is right: Liverpool cannot yet think about winning the title. And yet they began as favourites for many. Reigning champions often do. Slot knows that is no guarantee of glory. When Feyenoord did not retain the Eredivisie, it was because PSV Eindhoven won their first 17 league games. Yet they actually got more points than in their title-winning campaign, whereas now Arsenal’s rise has been compounded by Liverpool’s slump.

Go back five years and Liverpool’s last title defence was destroyed by defensive injuries, yet even then, they were top at Christmas. Now they have spent more money as champions, suffered less from injuries, and have fewer legitimate excuses. And yet, after 11 games, they have lost five – and if there are red ribbons on the trophy in May, they will surely be those of Arsenal.